psychoswooper

Hate to gripe in a public forum but hell, everybody else does. Posting this here as I've seen other people get results by having a little "peer pressure" applied. And also I want to let other people know to beware of getting into arrangements with this guy and his new DZ near Reno as my experience with him has been that he makes agreements he doesn't abide by and won't pay as agreed. Basically, in my case his word was no good. Story: Our DZ closes each Aug & I sometimes rent out unused Tandem rigs to earn some $$ during that time. shipped 2 rigs to Myk Christian in Reno . He was starting a new DZ & only had 1 rig. Different things happened, they had bad weather, lost their plane etc etc. The rigs were hardly used,(but did come back covered in that god-awful Nevada dust) so he shipped them back after 2 months. Said he'd send a check for the unpaid rentals with the rigs... Problem: He did not send the payment. That was 2 months ago. I call every couple weeks to "remind" him but he won't answer or return my calls.... The agreement was to send a check each Monday, It never happened right from the start and I wouldn't even get a call explaining why...I knew I was taking a big chance sending my rigs off to a stranger on the other side of the country, but I thought I was helping a new DZO get off the ground so to speak. I quess I won't do THAT again. Anyhow, if you do business with this guy or his DZ I suggest getting paid up front.

Posted here because this applies to every "Independent contractor" out there. New Tax Law (part of Health Care Bill) requires every business (if you are a contractor, you are a business) to issue 1099's to any entity to which it pays more than $600 in a year for goods or services. Example: You buy a new container..send Mirage a 1099. A new canopy? Send PD a 1099. Make $600 or more of currency jumps at a DZ, send them a 1099. Blank Dvds, memory sticks mailer from Staples? Send them a 1099. New video camera from BestBuy? send them a 1099; or be in non-compliance of Federal Tax Law. If this doesn't sound like fun to you, contact your congressman. This needs to be repealed.

As 1 of the 1st female TMs from way way back in the day, First I want to say congrats on your rating. Doing Tandems is awesome. Have fun with it. However I do want to point out 3 potential problem areas: 1: Unstowed excess lateral strap should be secured. As should all excess leg straps, chest straps etc' #2. Tandem reserves are packed to withstand Tandem terminal at max loadings, and therefore are not packed to open super fast like individual reserves. You will probably never find yourself in a situation to be opening really low, but it could take a while with extremely light wing loadings. #3. Really gotta watch the wind with such light wing loadings. Helpful hints: I weighed 130-135 when I started doing Tandems. After a bit of experience, I started taking the 200+ lb guys. All the male TMs loved me, because I left the little girls for them.

Quote Make sure to invite Mike G. from ChuitingStar. He would know. Whoever this poster is, Are you trying to be an asshole? Or did it just come across that way?

I remember Bob RIP. Crazy, talented, and fun. Always a pleasure to have around.

I have heard tell of a DZ where the manifestor will walk up to a TM as they are suiting up a TP; hand the TM a $20 and say "Oh, here's the tip your last passenger left for you" as a way of"assisting" the current TP with the idea of tipping. Even when the last passeneger hasn't really left a tip.

QuoteI'm writing up a proposal to an airport board to use the place for jumping. I know the usual stuff. We have the right to use the place, if it accepts fed funding, IMHO having had to win over an airport board that had banned skydiving forever, I think you should not mention (at least yet) that you have the "right" to use the place. More bees with honey kind of thing. Things we did: went to meetings in business attire. Made each commisioner their own professional looking binder of our proposal. Mention how much fuel you'll buy, rent you'll pay, jobs you'll create, local rstaurants & hotels that will benefit, Include in the binder a copy of the BSRs & FARs, promise to abide by them. And then....don't take no for an answer....it took us months of meetings to finally get a go ahead...we Never brought up our "right" to be there...just wore them down with sweetness ;)

I deal with J Michael a lot. Great service. No problems at all ever in my experience

When I first started jumping in Homestead FL, there was a place called "Kendall Glider Port"just north of Homestead which also had jumping & was run by a guy named Monty. He then had a place on the North side of Lake Okeechobee (north from Clewiston) for a while. I did quite a few jumps at Utah Sky Ranch in Ogden Utah run by Larry Bagley, who was at that time Pres of USPA.... Then there was Crestview FL (Bob Sikes Airport) owned by Brigitta Holmgardd who then married Bob Hollar & they had it together for a few years.

Explanation we got was that they "spaced it" "blew it" can't remember the exact terminology, but something along those lines. If that's true, I quess it's just a case of lack of professionalism. Maybe we got bad info & there was a good, legitimate cause, but we were not made aware of it.

Skydive EXPO was very awesome and everybody in my group of 5 hopes that it will happen again next year (if not sooner). Thanks to all the manufacturers and seminar speakers, organisers, etc. The only con of the whole event was Team Babylon not showing up for their Saturday morning seminar on freefly safety---IMHO this was very disrespectful to all the people who sat in the seminar room wondering where they were, and when & if they would arrive. Super Kudos, however to Noah from Skydive Chicago who was recruited to cover for them & had to wing it with no preparation. Thank You very much Noah.

Sunburn.

Confucious say "Do what you love and never work another day" or something to that effect

At Quincy Fl aka skydive Tallahassee. $35 deposit is non-refundable if student does not show up. If weather is bad, planes are down or they can't go for any reason that is not their own fault- they get a refund. Of course we try to reschedule, but maybe they don't really want to go another day. It's their money. And a lot of times if they have a really good reason- sprained ankle day before playing soccer-family member in hospital... we let the deposit "ride" for another time. BTW when I worked at Homestead many years ago, a customer took them to court over not refunding a gift cert (after it had expired) The DZ LOST, thereby setting precedent in Florida at least. Judge kept referring to something called "specific performance:

Ha ha me too. Liked my SC for a while but sold it to a friend (who loves it) and I swear my $35 or so camping air mattress is way more comfortable to me.

Thanks everyone for your advice. My friend doesn't have her passport yet, so we're going to take our chance on booking our flight for the intended dates, then if we can't get Inca Trail permits, we'll take one of the other trails. We may improvise a lot of it. BTW we wouldn't mind adding more people to our group (of 2) so if anybody is interested, we plan to leave the US on May 5th. & stay til about the17th. On another note: Haggis, yuck yuck yuck (last year's trip was to Scotland)

Thanks. My friend & I - being from Sea level- plan to spend 1 day in Lima & 3 full days in & around Cusco before hitting the trail. We're reasonably fit, but not athletes (unless U count skydiving) I've heard varying descriptions of the trail ranging from "not bad at all" to "grueling" Also we are both training before we go. How bad is it really? We plan to spend a night in Aquas Calientes afterwards too.

Planning a May trip to Peru. Plan on doing the Inca Trail (4 day) Any great experiences or terrible experiences with particular outfitters? Thinking of using SAS. Recent rules don't allow for personal hikes, so you have to hire a guide/ and or go as part of a group (least expensive option)

[ Caught in Quincy, Florida? Nah, a couple towns over. If he had made it here we would have made him buy beer & sit around the bonfire. Then we would've given him shit for trashing such a nice plane. After that....well, depends how much $$$ he had

Man I feel old but I remember the one they called the 2 by 4. Very nice 4 stack, some very well known people.

I called Mirage, Gus & Ward were both out. Didn't get around to calling back yet. I have only seen it on Mirages so far. But in all fairness we are a very Mirage "heavy" area & I see more Mirages than any other rig. Also the Mirage has an extremely strong reserve pilot chute compared to many others I've repacked. IMHO I think it is a combination of the hard plastic used at the base of the cutter head, the extremely strong pilot chute, the perfect alignment of the rim of the pilot chute with the base of the cutter head, and the distribution of the bulk of the particular pack job. (mirages having the majority of bulk in the bottom) I think that at the minimum it requires regular inspection of this area and special attention by riggers to not apply any additional force at this juncture during rig closure

QuoteA CYPRES brand AAD with a fired cutter also returns the same results. The connection is rather solid so it's not terribly likely to come undone with with anything other than poor rigging. It's not that the connection is coming undone, that would be highly unlikely. It is that the junction point at the very base of the cutter head is bending/ breaking due to the forces of the rim of the reserve piot chute exerting a 90% angle of force against this area.

They have replaced the 2 damaged cutters. I have been told that they were aware of this area getting "bent" but the broken one I discovered was the 1st that was all the way broken, and that they had a similar problem on some "special use rigs" and corrected it by changeing the junction point of the cutter head from the rather "brittle" (my opinion) platisc that is is on CYPRES 2's back to the more flexible heat shrink material that it was on CYPRES 1's.

Just FYI, a CYPRES 2 (not sure about CYPRES 1) once turned on, can then have the cutter completely unplugged and still show a Zero, as if everything is good to go. Why does this matter? Basically just that you should not assume that your CYPRES 2 is actually ready to do it's job just because you have a successful countdown & end up with a zero. No, your CYPRES cuttter will probably not unplug itself during the course of the day, however, I have discovered a couple of reserve containers (Mirage G-4's in particular) where the interscection of the top rim of the spring exerts a great force right where the attachment point of the cutter unit metal part & plastic part join together. One was completely severed, one was partially broken...meaning a possibility of no electrical impulse to your cutter (no continuity). In addition to a successful powering up of the unit & normal battery check & 4 year check, I think actually removing the cutter unit out of it's elastic holder to inspect this area is needed. I have heard from other riggers in the field that it is not particulary uncommon to find this piece bent, although I may have come across the 1st that was completely broken.

My suggestion. Take a deep breath & know that everything will be OK. Talk to a professional. You have a lot of feelings you need to sort out. This crazy place is not the best place to try to do that.